Gender Equality in the Welfare State?

Paper $36.95ISBN: 9781847426642
Published
August 2012
For sale in North and South America only

Cloth $100.00ISBN: 9781847426659
Published
July 2012
For sale in North and South America only

The construction of welfare states during the postwar era relied upon many assumptions about gender differences. Originally placing men as breadwinners and women as caregivers, these states have attempted to rebalance gender roles in their programs over the decades. In Gender Equality in the Welfare State? Gillian Pascall questions how successful they have been. Analyzing the male breadwinner model as it operates in the central areas of care, work, time, income, and power, she provides a framework for understanding the policies and practices that have worked toward gender equality. Contextualizing national policies and debates within data and analysis, she offers a new and important approach to an issue of wide concern.

“It makes a valuable and timely contribution to scholarship in this area.”

Baroness (Ruth) Lister of Burtersett, Loughborough University

“There is a crying need for this publication. Anyone who teaches in the area of gender and social policy will want this publication.”

International Journal of Social Welfare

“Pascall’s book offers an accessible, valuable guide to gender equality in welfare systems. . . . It comes at a critical point when recession threatens hard-won gains on socioeconomic welfare and gender equality.”

Lindsey McCarthy, Sheffield Hallam University | People, Place and Policy

“Gender Equality in the Welfare State? was published in the context of a postfeminist choice rhetoric in which it is increasingly assumed that gender equality has been achieved. Going against this grain, Pascall's book is a potent reminder that change has not infiltrated as far as some commentators claim.”

For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu